The Power Of School Stories
“We owe it to each other to tell stories.” – Neil Gaiman
From a very young age people are taught such infamous childhood fables as The Boy Who Cried Wolf, The Hare and the Tortoise and The Goose that laid the Golden Eggs.
These fables originate from 620BC and are still taught in schools today!
How many still remember these famous fables? Almost everybody will remember at least one of these infamous fables.
Storytelling began on cave walls and has travelled through time passing through rock art, hieroglyphics, painted artefacts, and has now entered the modern era with social media.
Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, Vines have stories captured and shared every day. Storytelling hasn’t changed - but the channels we tell them via have evolved.
(The Hare and the Tortoise 1700-2015)
A story from 620BC is now a YouTube Video!
The Hare and Tortoise has been passed down from ancient Greece and continues to be told on social media!
Storytelling has more than passed the test of time. Stories are here to inspire, educate, entertain, and bring people together!
Did you know? On the Eastern Pediment building of the US Supreme court, a Hare and Tortoise features referencing the ancient fable of the Hare and Tortoise, showing the “fundamental and supreme character of the court”
As the start of the school year approaches, people are starting to think about when they first started school. I’m sure many of us have heard the stories from our parents about our first day and how excited or nervous we were. Walking through the school doors for the first time, looking back seeing our parents wave!
Schools are places of ‘firsts’:
- …first day
- …first assembly
- …first lesson
- …first friend
- …first gold star
- …the list is endless!
“The human species thinks in metaphors and learns through stories.” -Mary Catherine Bateson”
From children wearing their uniforms for the first time to parents watching their child walk into school for the first time there are endless special moments quickly approaching!
With all these moments just around the corner, let’s ensure that these once in a lifetime moments, and stories are captured.
We are going to look at how schools can share all of these special moments using storytelling through social media!
Sharing your story instantly
140 characters to tell a story. This is not a lot of characters and you’re probably thinking “HOW IS IT POSSIBLE TO TELL A STORY IN 140 CHARACTERS?!”
There are 8.4 million people currently enrolled in school, of those pupils 1.4 million will be starting their first day of school in the UK. If just one parent of every child tweeted 140 characters we would have a story 196 million characters long.
This makes one pretty long story!
By including #Happy1stDay in tweets, the world is creating one giant story; stories filled with pictures, videos.
This is a lot more than just one person tweeting up to 140 characters, this is the world engaging one another creating an amazing story!
Vine
6 seconds to tell a story!
This doesn’t seem like enough time to tell a story does it? Particularly when some Hollywood blockbusters are 3 hours long! But you can easily capture an emotional moment in 6 seconds.
Let’s look at this Vine below:
This Vine shows the magical journey of a child starting his first day of school. Although only 6 seconds long the Vine captures true emotion and tells a story…in only six seconds!
Did you know: Vine can be directly connected to Twitter, by adding Vine to your tweets you can enrich our storytelling experience. Don’t be afraid to try out using Vine, its fun and captures brilliant stories!
By including #Happy1stDay, this Vine is just one piece of the story! Combined with other fantastic Vines we capture one giant story.
View our blog on distributing short videos!
Snapchat
Sharing your memories of today
Snapchat is a wonderful platform for storytelling. Snapchat focuses on the idea of “Snapchat Stories”.
Each person can post videos (up to 10 seconds) and pictures, which then play chronologically to form a short story of your 24 hours.
Create an awesome, more personal story to share with all your followers or just specific people.
We are keeping a close eye on Snapchat as it evolves, with the inclusion of live events and other new features it definitely won’t be long before it’s being used in education!
Sharing your story forever
With these memories being so precious, it’s more than understandable that parents or even schools want to archive these memories forever.
In 2011 Facebook revolutionised storytelling by creating a timeline for the life of a person, brand, organisation. Facebook allows people to document key milestones.
Instead of looking through old dusty photo albums, trying to put a name to a face or trying to remember special events or parties once attended, Facebook does all of this instantly!
Facebook really does create a unique brand of storytelling. The story you share will be only with your friends but creates a breathtaking storytelling experience!
Scroll down your own Facebook timeline! It’s guaranteed you’ll be amazed by all the old memories that have been forgotten about and stumbled upon!
Flickr
Storing your photo memories
If all parents were asked to find a picture of their first day of school, most of the pictures are again probably tucked away in a dusty old photo album in an old cupboard!
Flickr is the essential story archive for schools!
St Dunstan’s College really capture what Flickr is all about with their headline “Every Moment Matters”.
Every moment does matter in a child’s life and not many memories are more precious then the first memories of school!
Flickr creates an online series of albums, based on events at the school:
- First Day
- Sports Day
- Trips
Flickr is just like old photo albums (except they won’t get dusty!).
YouTube
Capturing your memories on video
Magical moments happen at every single school. Why not capture and share the story on YouTube?
The power of short and sweet video on Vine and Snapchat have been discussed. But what about long-form video? Enter YouTube…
YouTube can be a personal archive - post videos as private and only you can access your videos.
However let’s all encourage each other to share videos and wonderful stories for the world to see!
Schools all have magical memories and the ability to inspire.
#Happy1stDay
Our #Happy1stDay campaign is encouraging schools to share their inspiring first day stories!
So many magical firsts are just around the corner and it fantastic to see more schools sharing their stories, not just with @intSchools but with everybody around the world!
Get involved. Get sharing.